black and white

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Sisters

Thursday, March 11, 2010

time machine-scode lake

He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.--ColeridgeOn the road to the lake, I am searching for the real lake name and lat/lon. It was in Franklin County or Henry County. This back when hauling people in the pickup was legal. Back when American kids were skinny. Oh lost!

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

brothers

Monday, February 08, 2010

serious

Sunday, February 07, 2010

family

Walked into town for a movie with Robin, The Blind Side. Some families you are born into, some you choose. Both are good.Kodachrome slides. Top image, Warrenton Virginia, Lee's Ridge c.1963, photo by LtC Bill Emory of his children. Bottom image, our father, summer of 1968, by me, shot out of the bus window.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Yeocomico River

Sunday, June 07, 2009

monster light

Saturday, February 07, 2009

2x2x2x11

Earlier in the week I got on my hands and knees and scrubbed the kitchen floor. I helped my mother with this job when I was a child. She'd let me use a safety razor, to cut built up wax off the floor. So it was in the days before sheet goods.This floor gets washed and waxed once a year. The only thing that builds up on it is red clay. No wax problem.Today is 88th anniversary of my father's birth.I miss him.I will miss him forever.

Friday, January 09, 2009

first dog

Ricky is the first dog I remember. He lived through a lot of things. He was careful not to get left behind, loaded himself into the trunk of my dad's car, making a point.This is one of my father's Kodachrome shots (desaturated 50%).

Monday, September 15, 2008

return

Saturday, July 26, 2008

blessed are the notetakers

In the midst of this overflow of generous sentiment, one country gentleman, an admirer no doubt, of both parties named, asked Mr. Webster what his estimate of Mr.J.Q.Adams was. It was like a wet blanket on the conversation. Mr. Webster threw himself back in his chair, and, as if speaking to himself without any reference to the question asked, said in his deep bass voice, "I hate a man who takes notes."- WHE

My high school English teacher painted me a picture emblazoned with the legend, "they don't hand out prizes for persistence." The English teacher's father, an English teacher, has a persistent student now running for president.

Today is the 65th birthday of another English teacher, pictured above (1976) and below (2002).

Everyday he writes the book.

If I were king, I would require, of everyone, leave a summation behind.The conclusive epitaph.A report to those who follow.Stone tablet, novella, music-video, diary, the form is your choice. What did you do, what did you leave undone?Everyone renders an account.There would be vainglorious and delusional autobiography. There would be truth.The words, the deeds, the love, the people, all go to dust.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

edith

Friday, July 27, 2007

Waterfront

Near the mouth of the River Ouse. Adeline Virginia Stephen was in the water for eighteen days before the children found her."What is the meaning of life?... a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark." Va. Woolf

Thursday, December 01, 2005

home alone

Blackbird flew south this morning after 2 weeks of being my caretaker, shepherd and everything through rain, night, frost, fugues, depressive interludes.I haven't been easy, but I have rested easy, I have been cared for. A curative visit appreciated beyond words.Amsel flew towards the south this morning after 2 weeks of the Centres my employee, sheepdog and all by rains, harms, freezing, Fugues, of Zwischenspiele depressing. I was not simple, but I have simple, me interested was stopped. A curative visit estimated beyond the words (english to german to french to english again, courtesy babelfish, the poetic translation machine)

Thursday, November 03, 2005

0604hrs slabtown

My sister is driving here to visit for a few days. Tried to talk her into navigational aids, at the very least a cellphone. Everyone gets lost on the way here.My sister inherited my dad's love for training chaos, I am hoping to turn her loose. See if she can talk the squirrels into leaving the chimney.

Monday, September 26, 2005

PCa

In his sixty-second year my dad was informed of unwelcome growth; malignant, metastatic prostate cancer. In spite of his yearly visits to the urologist undifferentiated over-enthusiastic cells had divided, multiplied in and burst the confines of his prostatic capsule.

Cut it out, cut it off, irradiate, inject.

Close the stable door.

Post-op my father went about his business. He visited his children, drank with friends, smoked a pipe, laughed, tended his garden, he welcomed the birth of grandchildren.

Doctors are reluctant to share the prognosis, to open the curtain and give the audience an awareness of the last act. We are growing to death, but Medicine denies the denouement. HealthCare professionals treat but they are reluctant to let you in on The Knowledge.

"If I were to share the probable course and outcome of this disease it might shorten your dad's survival."

The patient isn't clever enough to contemplate or plan for the future.

In his 70th year my father ached, his bowel habits changed, his body was failing. What could the matter be? The medical answer was at the end of a gauntlet of tests. The medical answer was also in the prognosis which had never been shared with my dad. For men with metastatic prostate cancer the Mortality and Morbidity graph slopes precipitously, eight years and farewell.

On Sunday we drove to the hospital in my ancient car, hints of spring afoot. His doctor telephoned orders ahead for the introduction of a large gauge catheter into my father's arm. A big bore proboscis, 10 gauge, like a fat pencil lead, sufficient in diameter to inject him with crème of wheat or grits.

My father had reached his three score and ten, the biblical span of a life. He was ready for home, ready to be with his parents and sister, ready to lie down and die. Dying follows life. It's straightforward for the pure of heart.

The MD resented my questions regarding the utility of the big needle. "I want large diameter so we can transfuse."

My father said no thanks to the transfusion. He took some IV fluids, we asked about controlling his pain, we went home.

The second week in April my dad signed his name to a tax return, he laughed, "death and taxes."

Lets call him by his name. Bill. Bill was a lucky man. Bill went the distance. He married the woman he loved. He saved money. His taxes were paid. He was looking toward dying at home, in his room, on the ground floor. Leaving in the youth of Virginia springtime, a shroud of violet and green, forsythia blooming outside the window.

He was brave, he was courteous, he was set to leave. He couldn't stay. He was listing, cancer man, he was full of unreliable tissue.

He stayed a little longer.

He stayed a week. The dogwoods bloomed.

He stayed another week, the dogwoods shed their petals, white on asphalt.

Eight years of being a father afforded me insight into how fathers think. I caught my dad on a good day, when no one was home, in forsythia time, on a solo run. I looked at him and said "I'll be o.k. I'll be o.k. when you go. You are my sun, you are the center of my universe and I will be o.k., you have grown me good, you have done your job, you can lie down now. I will be o.k."

Weekends, my daughters and I drove east to Richmond. Out of the Piedmont to the coastal plain. Granddaddy doesn't get out of bed anymore. I can kiss him all over, I tell him I love him. He can't get up and run.

Being a father made me a better son. Bill and I talked about everything. We said goodbye. These meetings were a gift from God.

He was a fiercely independent man, a powerful force. He worked in the predawn, he worked in shadow, he worked for peanuts. He worked for the joy of astounding. He worked alone.

He had this yule log thing.

Santa couldn't come to our house, no room, In the fireplace Christmas morning, without fail, a tree section that could have corked the sepulcher of the Nazarene. A hulking prehistoric cylinder of wood, oxen couldn't move it. How did he put it in place? We never knew, he wouldn't say.

In the shadows he made it happen.

Rattling, pausing, Bill was doing the scary breathing. The girls and I balanced on telephone-pole timbers, we walked, we stayed out of the house. I returned Emma and Helen to the Piedmont and doubled back to Richmond. I wanted to be with him. "yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil."

I wanted to be with him in the valley, I wanted to be at his hand.

I stayed awake all night, his last night. Sat on an extra bed in his room and read. I sat on the bed and looked at him, now very gone. His body decimated, his mouth open, his eyes not seeing. In shadow.

Morning came. The tulips were blown, the azaleas beyond their prime, it was time to plant tomatoes. He didn't die.

Monday, July 25, 2005

report

Sunday, July 03, 2005

By the big stream

On the road, a brief reunion of my family, 2 daughters, wife, the span of domesticity from two decades ago that brought twins into my life,

The river rolls.

#2 above wanted to be in the Navy but his mother had lost two brothers in a shipwreck, no way her Bill was going near the water.

He spent his life at sea.

The Algonquin name for this place means ?by the big stream.? One of the daughters has a 24 hour liberty, we are visiting. She is hoarse, from sounding off, a tad bruised from running the Obstacle course. Responds to me with Yes Sir.